


An eternal return

by NaroMoreau



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Marriage Proposal, an attempt at being deep, dumb self introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24871291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaroMoreau/pseuds/NaroMoreau
Summary: Crowley reflects about life itself and makes some progress in the way. He may end up discovering a few things of his own.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 52





	An eternal return

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afhyer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afhyer/gifts).



> For my good friend afhyer. I hope you enjoy this silly thing. Thank you for all your endless support!

_And though the shadow of a sigh_   
_May tremble through the story,_   
_For ‘happy summer days’ gone by,_   
_And vanish’d summer glory –_   
_It shall not touch with breath of bale_   
_The pleasance of our fairy-tale_

_Lewis Carroll_

* * *

Odd things, legends are. 

Crowley has seen a few sprout to life, watched the brairds set root and grow. _Distort_. Stemming from the stark necessity of humans to bound themselves to the past through tales, they are means to dissect the morass of actions, errors and triumphs of those before them. Twisting names, shifting faces, bending actions to speak louder. Quieter. 

After all history is never fair with those which bones are already dust. 

A whisper that bounces from ear to ear, era to era, never to be quite forgotten nor truly remembered. 

Legends, as such, are never true. Too much frippery around uncertainties. Too many layers around half truths. 

Yet humans, ridiculous creatures that they are, strive to find and pinpoint the stalk of wheat in a field of barley; the sole, single fact worth to return back full circle. 

Shapeshifting legend into history once again, to claim a justifiable legitimacy of their origins or paths wandered. Never to fall in the same swale ever again.

It's all very commendable, Crowley supposes. 

Don't see the point, though. Not really, no.

History tends to repeat itself and it doesn’t mean much to Crowley. Not when half the facts are laden with the fear of the victor to remember the vanquished. 

The inexorable ticking time that leads to death. 

And so, legends, as such, become a crafted link to the certainty of destruction. 

Where does he stand? 

Crowley doesn’t get it at all. Perhaps because he isn’t one to be granted a hereafter. 

* * *

It's strange this feeling, Crowley thinks. Something that fills every crease and sheds light over spaces inside him never built for that kind of instalment. Blunting his sharp edges, sucking out venom from every wretched vein, every so cursed artery. He’d got used to love in vain and for a lifetime that was fine. It was fine. 

He finds himself unprepared when it happens. Upended in his certainties.

The seamless shift to take Aziraphale's hand in an effortless move. Kiss those lips with abandon. Cradle that body in his arms, a tangle of limbs, finding every pleasant spot where the two should’ve met an aeon ago. 

Over a wall. 

On an endless sea. 

In a damp bog or at the shade of a ghastly room. 

Crowley sews fond memories ignoring the selvages. Ten years, fifteen, a century where they were both asunder. To his eyes, they’ve never been apart. He doesn’t remember a time where something in him hadn’t been permanently enkindled by that desperate love for that beautiful angel. 

And now Aziraphale has made him a promise, when he’d asked for nothing. Unworthy as he is. 

Rows and bickering, - so much bickering because there’s no other creature as infuriating or mulish as Aziraphale, someone help him - and tears followed by tender embraces, sex of the life-affirming or blistering kind and lackadaisical mornings. 

But there’s one more thing Crowley hankers an answer for, the Serpent of the Tree of Knowledge reaping one last harvest. He breathes out his cowardice, a bone-chilling dread of rebuff and his heartbeat speeds along his thoughts. 

He glances at the certainly out of fashion longcase clock. It’s almost noon. 

He could’ve said ‘ _I love you_ ’ a thousand times already this day. 

“I love you, angel,” Crowley says for good measure. 

Aziraphale regards him a smile from his desk, eyes bright and unafraid. “Why, I love you too, Crowley, dear,” he says. “Can you believe it’s been a year already?”

“A what?”

“A year. Since Armageddon.”

A piece of the woven cloth of history in its way to the legend league. Crowley smirks.

“That seems important. How about, eh, how about lunch at the Ritz?”

“I thought you said it was take out day.”

“Oh, c’mon angel, you can’t celebrate adopting a godson with-- what-- something out of a box?”

“I’d say.”

“That’s settled then.”

The small, velvet black box lays dormant in his pocket. It didn’t feel so heavy seven days ago.

* * *

Crowley's been gnawing at the question to the marrow for a good while now. 

“Oh, Max,” Aziraphale calls their waiter, “you must tell John he outdid himself with this meal. Positively divine.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll tell him, Mr. Fell.”

The waiter bows and promptly retreats. 

Aziraphale is happy, his angelic essence probably casting miracles amok in a five block radius. Now is as good as time as any. 

But there’s no moon nor starry sky. Not even a ridiculous nightingale singing outside. Just a well-lit room with too many diners, too many voices but his own. Crowley has dreamt of this, his tongue has wore the words in a hundred iterations. And blast him, it’s never perfect. 

“We should go to Tadfield over the weekend,” Aziraphale says. 

Engrossed as he is in his current predicament, Crowley’s attention flies over the words. “Mmm?”

“We should go to Tadfield. To visit.”

“Ah, yeah. Sure, whatever you say, angel.”

Crowley’s certainly not expecting a firm grip on his hand. “Is it something wrong, dear?”

“Wha--? Nah.” Crowley lies, hurting for every single line of worry etched in Aziraphale’s brow. “Just--”

“Yes?”

The tidal bore of a feared no, renders him speechless. What’s left for him if the worse comes to pass? Just a barren, forsaken planet that doesn’t even have an expiration date anymore? For a moment he wishes to have paid attention to the scrying course all those years ago. 

But the look in Aziraphale’s lovely face, curly hair shining as a halo, agog to hear whatever Crowley is about to say... Sticking with him because who he is, rather than in spite of it. 

Crowley relinquishes his lasts excuses. 

“I’ve been carrying this along for a week now.” He plucks the box out of his pocket, slowly, giving time for Aziraphale to catch on his drill and stop him. To save them both the heartbreak, but the angel just waits, with a smiling countenance and that look that spells _adoration_ in every crease and beloved wrinkle.

The black, soft velvet box lays on the table, like an oyster ready to be wrenched open. 

“I uh-- see, angel, I just--” Crowley wants to hawk the words out of his throat, where they are stuck like a fish bone, but it would be _rude_ so he resorts to puff. “I just--”

Aziraphale looks as if he's about to combust from sheer anguish. “Crowley, _please_ , love.”

And so the wavering lilt breaks his dam. 

“Marry me.”

There's absolutely no finesse. No poetical sense whatsoever. No mention of Aziraphale's favourite Sonet - _116, the old sap_ \- or the myriad of things Crowley had stowed in a blank parchment in his mind, folded between the pages of their memories together. 

It's not a question either. 

"Angel I--"

"Yes." Aziraphale leans and kisses him gently; a hand cupping a cheek, the other warmly placed over a bony thigh. "Yes, yes, yes, you idiot."

There's something burning inside him so brightly, Crowley fights the urge to claw at his clothes. A conflagration of sorts, divine and not thanks to Her. 

He kisses Aziraphale back, and feels the sting of tears welling in his eyes without so much as a by-your-leave. Really demonic behaviour. 

"I want to see it," Aziraphale says signaling the box, idly waiting to be claimed. 

Crowley's addled brain act by instinct, opening the box carelessly.

But Aziraphale observes with something akin to reverence. 

"Thought you wouldn't mind." Crowley shrugs.

He holds a white gold serpent ring with dashing yellow diamonds in the eyes, a bit too conscious of being utterly exposed. There's no back away now.

"Oh love, it's beautiful!" Aziraphale titters. "I'll have the everlasting comfort of being always under your gaze."

A lump forms in Crowley's throat, so he harrumphs through the joy that is to finally put the band on Aziraphale's blessed finger.

There's another kiss, born of a middle ground decision, where both find each other and reach home. 

A silent wave of the most exquisite kind of love unfolds over the room, bringing arguments to an end, eliciting exhilarating kisses and gentle compliments. 

It bursts through the windows and sparks in the air. 

The ride to the bookshop isn't swift enough but they finally wind up on the old, dear sofa, laughing and kissing and laughing again.

There's so much to laugh for, so much to kiss away, so much to talk and mull over. 

And so Crowley thinks. About a wall. About an infinite sea. 

About _his own_ hereafter. Their own future.

Isn't that a legend in the making? 

The tale of a Demon and his Angel.

Yet he decides in the aftermath that's not accurate at all. Legends are stagnant. Dead are their stars. 

But theirs...

Theirs is a fable being told, still untangled like yarn and carefully parsed through aeons. No one claims where it began, no one knows where it may end. 

Theirs is a myth in the making.


End file.
